Congressional Hearings on Steriod Use in Baseball

"Unwitting positive" and "progressive discipline." Does this sound like something from a futuristic crime drama regarding new investigation and punishment regimes? Not quite. Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball's VP of labor relations (yes, he's a lawyer if you're wondering) used these terms to describe the new steroid drug testing policy in Major League Baseball.

Today, the House subcommittee on government reform conducted extensive hearings on what seems to be the ever present (since the early to mid 1990's) problem of steroids in baseball, which, as pointed out during the hearings, is not limited to the professional level. What seemed, initially, as a positive step towards cleansing baseball and the numerous, yes numerous, tainted records generated during the past 10 to 20 years, slowly devolved into a depressing, superficial, and at times combative show of what it means to be a coddled enterprise in America.

Players' testimonies boiled down to pleas of ignorance and no comment. McGwire, who seemed to have no problem addressing the media when he pursued Maris's single season home run record, eventually breaking it, was evasive and unresponsive. When asked about whether he considered the use of steroids "cheating," McGwire responded that he was not in the position to determine whether it was cheating, a position that was contrary to that which was taken by the majority of other "distinguished" members of the panel, all of whom agreed that the use of steroids was cheating. And, when asked about his feelings on the discovery of androstenedione in his locker during his historic home run chase, a drug that was subsequently deemed illegal by Major League Baseball, McGwire answered that he wasn't there to "discuss the past" and dwell on the "negative" - answers that were consistently advanced by McGwire in response to numerous questions from inquisitive representatives on the committee.

One wonders why the player witnesses, with the exception of Canseco, even showed up since they all apparently decided beforehand that with respect to questions touching upon the "sensitive" areas associated with steroid use they would either 1) not answer; 2) plead ignorance; 3) claim that the problem was being adequately addressed (and do all they could with everything in their power and could muster up with their superhuman strength to help); or 4) admit that there was a problem but it was relatively minor (Curt Schilling, who deserves credit for agreeing to chair a special anti-doping task force along with Frank Thomas, dubiously characterized his previous warnings of steroid use in baseball as "grossly overstating" the problem).

The real kicker of the hearing came when Representative Tom Davis (R - Virginia) , the chairman of the committee, pointed out at the very outset of the hearing that penalties imposed by Major League Baseball for a player discovered using steroids is either a 10 day suspension or a$10,000 fine which, in the case of a fine, the identity of the offending player will be kept strictly confidential. When asked to explain this sorry-excuse for a disincentive to steroid use, witnesses on the last panel, including Manfred and Don Fehr, general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association, characterized the fine portion of the penalty as a drafting error (a characterization which was somewhat vague and subject to numerous contradictions in answers by the witnesses) - an incredulous response, considering the 2005-2006 season is a couple weeks away, and spring training has been in full swing for some time now. With so many other established drug testing regimes enacted by other professional sports leagues, all of which, I must add, seem to put Major League Baseball's newly minted steroid testing policy to shame, one must wonder why it's so difficult to put something down on paper without "drafting errors." Of course, one must consider that the policy was the product of bargaining by the players union, but, as one representative pointed out, why would a contractual term which deals with possession and use of illegal substances - a federal crime for laypersons and professional athletes alike - must be subject to such intense bargaining efforts, which invariably pulls the teeth out of an otherwise effective drug policy.

In the end, it appears that the hearings only exposed to the glare of public scrutiny a problem that was ready to explode in the faces of Major League Baseball officials, team owners and management, and the players themselves (a helpless and, more and more, hopeless bunch). Jim Bunning, a Senator (R-Ky) and a Hall of Fame pitcher from his career in the 1950s and 1960s, began the hearings with the following statement, which, I think, it also fitting as a closing thought to all of this madness: "When I played with Henry Aaron, Willie Mays and Ted Williams, they didn't put on 40 pounds . . . and they didn't hit more home runs in their late thirties as they did in their late twenties. What's happening in baseball is not natural, and it's not right."

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Posted: Thu - March 17, 2005 at 11:52 PM |

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Congressional Hearings on Steriod Use in Baseball

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